Interrogation

"Do you know? When it comes to interrogation methods, even bloodthirsty, cruel demon beasts cannot compare to humans."

"Have you heard of rod punishment? The rod punishment I'm talking about here isn't beating someone with a stick, but directly shoving a stick in through your mouth or anus, plunging the entire thing inside, piercing through your stomach and intestines, and making you die in unbearable agony..."

"There's also locking someone inside a barrel with only their head exposed, feeding them every day, and making them relieve themselves in the barrel. As time passes, the excrement will fill up their entire lower body, maggots will breed within it, and slowly burrow into your body..."

As Lin Chen listed one brutal punishment after another, Yu Man showed no reaction, merely watching him with a cold sneer.

He even thought, He's panicking. He's panicking!

In his view, as long as the other party resorted to torture for answers, it meant he cared about Yu Man's intelligence. In this battle of minds, he had won.

As long as he held out, the other party would definitely compromise!

As for those punishments, Yu Man truly did not believe a righteous-path disciple could possess any truly cruel methods. He figured Lin Chen had merely heard them secondhand and was trying to frighten him.

Seeing this, Lin Chen paused. Then the smile vanished from his face, and he said expressionlessly, "Forget it, forget it. I'm a rather kindhearted person—I can't stand seeing things that are too disgusting. Besides, doing that would be troublesome. So let's start with your fingers instead."

"I'll count down from ten. With every number, I'll crush one finger, until you talk."

The moment his words fell, true qi surged from Lin Chen's hand, sealing Yu Man's mouth shut and forming a great hand of spiritual energy.

He picked up the other man's hand and pulled out his little finger. Grasping the finger in his right hand, he slowly tightened his grip.

"Ten!" The ice-cold countdown began.

A teeth-grinding sound of bones shattering rang out. Yu Man's forehead veins bulged as he began struggling violently, but bound as he was, he could not escape. He could only watch helplessly as his finger was crushed into a blurry mass of flesh and blood.

Lin Chen reached out and undid the seal over Yu Man's mouth. "The information."

"You lunatic!" Yu Man roared. "If you kill me, don't even think about getting anyth—mmph!"

Before he could finish, Lin Chen sealed his mouth again. With a cold smile, he said, "Looks like I was still too merciful."

As he spoke, he grabbed another of Yu Man's fingers, his ring finger, and slowly squeezed down.

"Nine!"

Yu Man shook his head furiously, roaring in his heart, No! No! No! No!

Yet Lin Chen still pressed down. Violent pain struck, and Yu Man's entire body arched upward. Tears streamed endlessly from his eyes, while muffled sounds of struggle escaped his blocked mouth. "Mmph! Mmph!"

"Eight!"

Lin Chen ignored his struggles completely and pressed down again. The third finger instantly became a lump of minced flesh mixed with bone fragments. Feeling the heart-piercing pain shooting from his fingers, Yu Man's whole body shook violently.

"Five!"

The great hand of spiritual energy abruptly enlarged, covering Yu Man's palm before clenching down viciously.

Crack!

Accompanied by a piercing sound of cracking, Yu Man's right hand was instantly crushed by Lin Chen into a mass of bloody fragments!

Blood continuously streamed from the great hand of spiritual energy. The veins in his right arm bulged, his whole body trembling uncontrollably from the pain. His eyes even rolled back as he nearly fainted to death.

True qi in Lin Chen's hand transformed into a needle, which he viciously drove into a spot on Yu Man's head, forcibly keeping him awake.

"I'm terribly sorry. I accidentally counted wrong just now." To Yu Man, Lin Chen's calm expression at this moment was more demonic and terrifying than anything else. "How about we start over?"

No! No!

Yu Man struggled desperately, shaking his head without pause, his eyes full of pleading.

"Mmph! Mmph!!"

Yet Lin Chen was not moved in the slightest. He merely removed the seal from Yu Man's mouth.

"No, don't! Please, as long as you spare me, I'll tell you everything!" Yu Man pleaded.

At this moment, Yu Man was truly afraid. He had met many cultivators—some bloodthirsty and murderous, some fierce on the outside but cowardly within, some wild and arrogant—but no one had ever given him the feeling Lin Chen had just given him.

It was a kind of detached indifference. Yet it was not the apathy toward life born from killing too many people; it was more like an indifference that treated all things under heaven the same.

It was as though every living being was the same in Lin Chen's hands. Whatever he wished to do depended entirely on a single thought, without any restraint from such external things as morality or kindness!

"You haven't told me the information I want." Lin Chen sighed softly and made a move again.

"No, no, no... Please, please, spare me..." Yu Man begged bitterly, his voice even taking on a sobbing tone.

However, Lin Chen remained utterly unmoved.

Which of the cultivators he had experimented on had not been an evil cultivator guilty of murder, arson, and every imaginable crime? If he pitied them, then who would pity the innocent people they had harmed and killed?

Lin Chen's hand reached boldly toward Yu Man's left hand. That ice-cold gaze and chilling aura made Yu Man shudder from the depths of his heart!

"No! No! No! I'll talk! I'll talk!"

Just as Lin Chen's hand landed on his hand once more, Yu Man finally broke down completely.

This kind of pain and torment was simply not something an ordinary person could endure.

He desperately blurted out all the information he had obtained, terrified that if he was even a moment too slow, Lin Chen would torture him alive to death.

Under the bright lights of the laboratory, Lin Chen listened expressionlessly as Yu Man finished telling him everything. Then His Eyes Moved, and he asked lightly, "If you're lying to me..."

"I swear upon my inner demon that every word I said is true!" Yu Man hurriedly replied. "That is indeed what was written in the record of the ancient cultivator I obtained. The Lingnan Great Land is not a place with naturally formed spirit veins, but a spirit land born from the fall of an immortal!"